Gulf News: UAE bans private firms from hiring students in 31 work categories
Stringent administrative and professional obligations set for employers
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Abu Dhabi: The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) has banned private sector establishments from employing and training students during vacations across 31 categories of work and professions that are deemed hazardous.
This includes working underground in mines and quarries and all work related to the extraction of metals and stones, working in furnaces for smelting metals, and at bakery ovens, in addition to working in petroleum refineries, cement, ice and refrigeration plants and welding jobs.
Administrative obligations
Administrative and professional obligations have been set for establishments and employers that wish to train and employ students, the most important of which is not to undertake this at night times in industrial projects. The maximum working hours for students has been fixed at six hours a day, interspersed with one or more intervals of rest.
MOHRE has stated that the laws of the UAE allow citizen students and resident expatriates aged 15 years and above to work and receive training in private sector establishments, provided that a contract is written explaining the nature of the work and any other related matters, emphasising that the federal law regulating labour relations prohibits the employment of juveniles of both genders under the age of 15. The ministry does not grant work permits to any juvenile under this age.
Image Credit: Supplied
The ministry has specified six administrative and professional obligations for establishments and employers that wish to train or employ a juvenile student during academic leave, including not training or employing him at night in industrial projects. The word “night” means a period of no less than 12 consecutive hours from 8pm to 6am the next morning. The maximum actual working hours for a juvenile student is fixed at six hours a day, interspersed with one or more periods for rest, eating or prayer (not less than an hour in total), and this period or periods are determined so that the student does not work more than four consecutive hours. If a student’s working hours include a rehabilitation or training period, they are counted in his working hours, and in all cases it is not permissible for a juvenile student to remain in the workplace or training for more than seven consecutive hours.
According to MOHRE, the list of six obligations for employing students includes not assigning a juvenile student to work overtime under any circumstances, as he may not be kept in the workplace after his scheduled appointments, and he may not be trained or employed on days of rest. There is also a need for training the juvenile student on how to use occupational safety and health methods, and monitoring his application of them, while providing a working or training environment like all workers, taking into account the circumstances of the juvenile.
The obligations also include the need to inform the student’s guardians or anyone who has guardianship over the student of any illness, absence, or behaviour during work or training hours that requires knowledge of it, and finally the obligation not to train juvenile students or employ them in any prohibited work.
31 types of work
The ministry mentions 31 types of work, including underground work in mines and quarries; work in extraction of metals and stones; in furnaces prepared for smelting mineral materials or refining and ripening them, in petroleum refineries; in front of ovens in bakeries, cement factories and ice and refrigeration factories; treating mirrors with mercury, making firecrackers and related jobs; melting and maturing glass; and welding with oxygen, acetylene and electricity.
Image Credit: Pixabay
The list also includes painting with deco, processing, preparing or storing ash containing lead, extracting silver from lead, manufacturing tin and metal compounds containing more than 10 per cent lead, and manufacturing lead monoxide (golden mercury) or yellow lead oxide and lead dioxide (Sulfone), lead carbonate, lead orange oxide, lead sulphate, chromates, and sulfate, and the processes of manufacturing or repairing electric batteries, cleaning workshops in which hazardous work is practised, managing or monitoring moving machines or repairing or cleaning them while they are being operated, asphalt manufacturing and the manufacture of oil by mechanical methods, manufacturing fertilisers or working in its warehouses or in factories for mineral acids and chemical crops.
EXPERIENCE CERTIFICATE
MOHRE has stressed the importance of the commitment of establishments that train and employ students during vacations to grant each student an experience certificate at the end of the training or employment period for the training or work performed, which includes an evaluation of the performance during that period.
Some benefits may be granted to establishments that achieve outstanding results in training or employing citizen students. Any facility may employ students who have reached the age of 15, during their academic vacations, for a period not exceeding three months at a time, except in cases that are excluded by a decision of the minister or authorised representative, provided that in all cases, a contract is written stating the nature of the work, its duration, the student’s wage, the time of weekly rest and the number of daily working hours.
The list of occupational prohibitions included working in tanneries, skinning animals, cutting them and melting their fat, making rubber, filling cylinders with compressed gases, loading and unloading goods at docks, ports and warehouses, transporting passengers by land or in internal waters, and making charcoal from animal bones (except for the process of sorting bones before burning them), and the processes of bleaching, dyeing and printing textiles, working as hosts in amusement parks, in bars and carrying, pulling or pushing weights. It is also forbidden to assign students to work overtime under any circumstances, and theyshould not be trained or employed on rest days.